


Noises in the Woods

by Burgie



Category: Star Stable Online
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 05:33:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13357557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burgie/pseuds/Burgie
Summary: Alonso goes out to investigate the strange noises he hears in the woods on Halloween.





	Noises in the Woods

Alonso had been a ranger long enough to know that the Junior Rangers enjoyed celebrating Halloween and all of the spooky things that came with it. So he also knew to remain calm when stories of spooky things began to circulate the camp, particularly around the campfire at night. The latest stories were all about the screams that could be heard in Mistfall at night.

“And legend has it that her screams can still be heard to this day,” one girl finished her story, and as if on cue, the eerie scream lifted up from the night air. This was then joined by multiple screams of the junior rangers sitting around the campfire. Violet chuckled, but even she looked on edge.

“Alright, let’s not get too carried away,” said Violet, trying to soothe a frightened young ranger who clung to her. The little girl was sniffling, tears running down her cheeks.

“Sorry, Violet,” said the ranger who’d told this latest ghost story, a brown-skinned girl with black hair.

“My turn now?” asked Keema. Violet shook her head, but Alonso laughed now.

“Don’t worry, Violet, I’m sure that Keema’s story won’t be too scary,” said Alonso. “She’s more into extremes. It might be a little graphic, but that’s all.”

“Sweet!” Keema cheered, and took the flashlight. She shone it up under her chin, creating the perfect spooky countenance. “Long ago, before any of us were born, even Violet and Alonso-“

“We’re not that old,” Violet cut in, sounding annoyed.

“Fine then, before, uh… Mardy was born,” said Keema. Alonso nodded, accepting the taunts about Mardy’s age because she was an old girl. “Way back then, there was a man who used to roam these woods. He was a simple man, almost a ranger. But he was persecuted because he upset the wrong person- a witch. And so wherever he went, he came across bad fortune. Lakes turned poison, his food rations spoiled far too quickly, his horse kept throwing shoes and getting injured. Until one day this man, Thompson, was unlucky enough to come across some bandits on the road. He tried to fight them off, but it was in vain. At the climax of the battle, Thompson’s head was severed cleanly from his neck.” This resulted in a lot of grossed-out rangers giving a chorus of ‘eww’s.

“Maybe tone it down,” said Alonso, wincing at the thought of all the crying children coming to him or Violet with nightmares later tonight. It had probably been a mistake to let Keema tell her story, but at least they weren’t camping out in the forest. 

“Legend has it that to this day, Thompson’s ghost can be found in the forests of Jorvik at night, riding on his Jorvik Wild Horse. The ghostly steed can be known by its flaming hooves, mane and tail, and the smoky quality of its body,” said Keema. “And if you listen really closely, you can hear his enraged screams as he runs through the world, and the pounding of his horse’s hooves.” Some children clutched each other, while others looked alarmingly pale. And then they heard it. The scream, followed by pounding hooves. The children all screamed and began scrambling for the cabins, while Violet and Alonso shot to their feet and tried to calm them.

“Keema!” Violet scolded. “Now look at what you’ve done, scaring them like that. What were you thinking, putting that awful sound in your van?” Keema cackled, leaning back while her friends laughed with her.

“Hey, you’ve gotta admit, it was good, right?” said Keema, grinning. Violet frowned at her, then sighed and walked off to calm the frightened children.

“That’s it, Keema, you’re on cleanup duty,” said Alonso, giving her his best stern look. Keema shrugged.

“Eh, I’ll just call one of my new friends, they can help,” said Keema.

“No, I’m going to supervise and make sure that you do all of this on your own,” said Alonso, stamping his foot. “I mean it this time, Keema. Scaring children isn’t nice.” Keema stuck her tongue out at him.

Later that night, though, Alonso was woken by the screams of children, and a pounding on his cabin door. He sighed, changed into his ranger uniform, and walked out of his bedroom to answer the door. A group of children immediately hugged his legs, crying about how they’d heard Thompson again.

“Keema,” Alonso muttered, but his first priority was to calm the children. “Don’t worry, junior rangers, you can be safe in my cabin while I go and investigate what that noise was.” The children were only too happy to tumble into the cabin, where they all sat around hugging each other. After switching all of the lamps on and assuring the children once again that they would be okay, Alonso left the cabin, a flashlight gripped in his hand. 

His first stop was the cabin where the teenaged girls were staying. Putting on his best stern expression, Alonso knocked on the door. Nobody answered, at first. But, after he knocked again, a pyjama-clad teenaged girl answered the door, her blonde hair a mess.

“Oh! Alonso, I didn’t know you’d be here!” said the girl, blushing and immediately trying to hide behind the door.

“Sorry to interrupt your sleep, Melanie,” said Alonso. “Is Keema in here?”

“Uh, yeah, she’s sleeping, I’ll just go and get her,” said Melanie, and ran off into the cabin. Alonso waited, and soon enough, a bleary-eyed Keema padded towards him.

“Oh, hey Alonso,” said Keema, yawning. “What’s wrong, did I miss a dish or something?”

“No,” said Alonso, and pointed outside. “I have a cabin full of frightened children because of that prank you just pulled.”

“What prank?” asked Keema. “You’re going to need to be more specific. Was it the bats that swing down when you close your cabin door? The fake spider in your sock drawer? The fake snake I left in the toilet block? The-“

“What fake snake?” asked Alonso. “Keema, you know how dangerous snakes are! Go and remove it as soon as I’m done with you.” Keema rolled her eyes. “Hey now, don’t sass me! No, I’m talking about that prank with the scary noise from your story.”

“What, are they still upset about that?” asked Keema. “Gee, sorry, I didn’t think it’d upset them that badly.”

“Not that one, I’m talking about the one that went off a few minutes ago.” Keema was too silent and confusion furrowed her brow. Alonso immediately felt fear tingle his skin. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

“Uh, the sound system in my van is turned off,” said Keema. “It has been for a while now, I didn’t want to flatten the battery.”

“Are you sure?” asked Alonso, wanting it to just be that. Because if it wasn’t Keema’s prank, then…

Alonso watched Keema carefully as she leaned into the van, making sure that she didn’t touch anything that would switch off the sound system if it was turned on. She didn’t touch anything except for the play button on her car stereo. No sound came out, and Alonso felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He shivered.

“Yep, that’s definitely turned off,” said Keema. “Look, I’ll even give you the only disc that has that sound recording on it.”

“Re… but you made it, right?” asked Alonso. Keema shook her head.

“No, I heard it in the woods one night,” said Keema. Now Alonso felt himself beginning to tremble, though he tried to hide it from the teenager. She’d definitely tease him about it.

“Okay, I’m going out to take a look around,” said Alonso. “Stay here.”

“Alright, I’ll get rid of the pranks,” said Keema. She walked off as Alonso walked over to his faithful mare, who was turned out in the pasture for the night.

“C’mon, Mardy, and be brave. We may find a monster tonight,” said Alonso as he tacked up his mare. Mardy didn’t look too afraid, walking over to the fence and standing still so that Alonso could mount. Pulling his hat down tightly, Alonso set out, keeping an eye and ear out for any danger. His flashlight lit the way ahead of him, but Alonso still felt on edge.

The sounds of the forest were so eerie now, alone at night. Each birdcall was so much louder, the foxes sounded scary, and the elk calls (the screams that had featured heavily in tonight’s stories) sounded genuinely bloodcurdling. But Alonso kept going on, driven on by his need to protect the young junior rangers under his care.

A twig snapped closeby, and Alonso felt his heart stop. At the sound of the snuffling, he trembled. It had to be a forest animal. Just a nocturnal forest animal, out feeding. His heart started up again, pounding now. But he had to be brave, for the kids. And so Alonso took a deep breath, turned Mardy, and felt his blood turn to ice in his veins.

The phantom stood in front of him, the one from Keema’s story. Well, not the man, he sat on his horse in the saddle, but the horse stood in front of him, grazing on the deep green grasses of Mistfall’s forest. Alonso tried not to make a sound, and even Mardy remained silent as they watched the phantom horse and its phantom rider. The rider wouldn’t see them… right? Well, he couldn’t, seeing as he had no head. But Alonso was still too terrified to move. So the stories were true, or at least, that one was. 

For a while, all Alonso could do was stare. He barely even dared to breathe, lest the phantom hear him somehow. But then the horse looked up, and Alonso jerked back in outright terror as the horse stared at him, its eyes burning with green flame. Oddly, the first thought that flashed through Alonso’s mind was ‘I hope that doesn’t start a forest fire’. But his skin felt numb with fear, and then his mind became a swarm of terror as he turned Mardy and took off through the forest. He heard the scream of a man, an unearthly cry that was even more terrifying for the fact that he shouldn’t be able to hear that. The headless phantom should not be able to make that noise, he had no mouth with which to scream. It was only by his sheer terror that Alonso wasn’t screaming himself.

Violet was waiting for him when Alonso got back to the ranger station, looking alarmed at seeing him gallop in so fast.

“What’s wrong?” asked Violet, seeing his pale visage. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

“I-I kind of did,” said Alonso, his entire body trembling as he slowed Mardy to a stop at Violet’s side. “Ge-get everyone inside, lock the doors and windows, oh I wish there was somewhere safe for us to put the horses.”

“You saw a ghost?” asked Violet, frowning. “Are you sure? The scary stories didn’t get to you, did they?”

“No, no, I know what I saw, and it was that phantom,” said Alonso. “The headless horseman.”

“Galloper Thompson?” said Violet. “No, he’s just a spooky Halloween story made up to frighten children. Maybe someone rides around dressed as him, maybe that’s what you saw.”

“Well, if it was a costume, it was a pretty good one,” said Alonso. “It really spooked me, my heart’s still pounding.”

“Well, just in case, I’ll get everyone inside,” said Violet. “We can’t have strangers lurking around the camp, after all.”

“Thank you,” said Alonso, shakily dismounting Mardy. He almost fell, but he managed to keep himself upright by leaning on his faithful steed. Untacking her proved to be more difficult, however, as his shaking fingers couldn’t quite grasp the girth or the reins.

“Here, let me do that,” said Violet, moving to stand at his side. “You go and make sure that everyone’s inside and safe. Just try not to scare the children any more than they already are.”

“I know, I’ll be careful,” said Alonso, nodding and trying to settle himself down.

Fortunately, Alonso had managed to at least make himself look and sound calm by the time he entered the first cabin. And everyone was all present and accounted for. Even Keema had actually gone to bed after removing all of the pranks.

By the time all of the cabins had been checked and the frightened children had been returned to their own cabin, Alonso had managed to convince himself that the phantom in the woods had just been Keema or someone else playing a prank. At least, that was what he thought before he walked back outside and saw Violet staring in horror at something. 

“What’s wrong?” asked Alonso, standing beside her. And when he saw it, he gasped and recoiled.

There, standing at the edge of the woods, was the phantom. His horse’s hooves and eyes were flaming, as were its mane and tail, and the headless rider himself was very much headless with a green flame wreathing one hand.

“Okay, you weren’t kidding,” Violet whispered, remaining still as a statue so as not to draw attention to herself.

“And I wasn’t tricked,” Alonso whispered, his voice barely making any sound. “It’s really-“

The horse looked at them, freezing them both in place. It snorted, moving its hooves to face them, and then reared. The rider gave a roar, and the horse sprang towards them. Violet and Alonso immediately broke out of their trance-like states and bolted for the nearest ranger’s cabin, where they slammed the door shut behind them, bolted it, and then leaned against it, panting.

Minutes passed, and Alonso became aware of the sound of hoofsteps as his breathing and heartbeat quietened down. He didn’t want to look out the window, but a Jorvik Ranger must be brave and face down any danger. And so Alonso crouched down and peered out of the window behind the curtain while Violet turned off the lights.

The headless rider rode around the ranger station, or more specifically, the campfire that had been full of life and screams and laughter not so long ago. Now, thankfully, the children were gone, all tucked up safely in their beds, and the campfire had long been extinguished. But the rider still circled the place. Alonso really hoped that he wasn’t looking for them, or for someone to feed on.

The horse looked up quite suddenly, and Alonso screamed and backed away as the large animal began cantering towards the cabin. As it got closer, it jumped. And Alonso screamed once more as the horse and rider both crashed through the window, splintering glass and wood everywhere as it dove for him. But it kept going, disappearing into the ground and leaving behind only a smear of snot-green ectoplasm, in which rested an amulet and a t-shirt.

It took hours for Alonso and Violet to calm the children who’d come running, terrified at the sound of breaking glass, and, even after the mess had been cleared up and the broken window boarded up, Alonso still didn’t feel like sleeping.

Neither ranger slept that night, still too shaken by the terrifying events that had transpired that night.


End file.
